CNET:
Apple and Samsung announced late Tuesday that they have agreed to settle all lawsuits filed against each other outside the United States but said patent lawsuits filed in the US would be unaffected by the deal.
“Samsung and Apple have agreed to drop all litigation between the two companies outside the United States. This agreement does not involve any licensing arrangements, and the companies are continuing to pursue the existing cases in U.S. courts,” the companies said in a statement.
This doesn’t mean there won’t be future lawsuits.
Depending on what the settlement constitutes, this probably means a win for Samsung. Delay, appeal, settle, and pocket the revenue in the meantime.
Europe is full of land mines and the rest of world has weak IP laws. They’ll continue in the US because litigation has become an American core competency, instead of something like, you know, manufacturing.
As long as Samsung continues to operate, there will be future lawsuits. Their business model is to clone products from other companies.
They screwed up when they cloned Apple, though. Samsung just announced to their investors that their chip fab would see dramatically lower production volumes in the near future (as Apple moves their chip fabrication to a new 3rd party fab.) The easy money they made selling iPhone clones (a business that is already dying out for them) won’t offset the fab losses.